1. Technical Field
Aspects of the present invention relate to an integrated circuit (IC) card having a fingerprint sensor.
2. Related Art
An IC card (Smart Card) is a card in which an integrated circuit (IC) is embedded. Compared with a magnetic strip card, the IC card has many advantages such as high information capacity, increased security (prevention of forgery and alteration), compatibleness with multiple applications, and load reduction of a host (off-line processing is possible). For these reasons, the IC card is starting to see introductions in the electric money and electric commerce fields, medical and health fields, transportation fields including railroads and route buses, security fields (such as a control of access to buildings) and other fields, in addition to card applications such as credit cards and ATM cards. In keeping with this trend, an IC card having a fingerprint sensor and a function of identification is proposed in order to further improve security (information protection, access restriction and the like).
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2004-64650 is a first example of related art. The first example describes such IC card having a function of identification and its art. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-24730 is a second example of related art. The second example describes an electronic payment system in which a barcode is shown on a display of a cellular phone and the barcode is read by a barcode reader to make a payment.
However, techniques described in the above-mentioned examples, which are used in order to provide security for users, are insufficient to ensure strong security for systems.